Most disappointing game dragon age 2? WTF?

@imsh_pl said:

Also, like everyone here has already said, no one had any expectations for Brink. DA:O on the other hand was widely liked, mainly by the 'hardcore' PC community, and the fact that they decided to abandon that formula and focus more on the console audience pissed many people, rightfully so.

For the record, the console version of DA:O was more successful than the PC version.

Don't blame dumbed down gameplay and poor design solely on consoles. Call of Duty is just as popular on the PC too.

I really like DA2, it had a much better story than Origins and generally more fun to play (I played the console version). Then again I really like FFXIII.

I loved DA2. I'm not pissed about their award, and can totally see where they are coming from. HOW POSSIBLE!?

@RYNO9881 said:

I really like DA2, it had a much better story than Origins and generally more fun to play (I played the console version). Then again I really like FFXIII.

This.

Edit: Also did people forget DNF?

@WinterSnowblind said:

@imsh_pl said:

Also, like everyone here has already said, no one had any expectations for Brink. DA:O on the other hand was widely liked, mainly by the 'hardcore' PC community, and the fact that they decided to abandon that formula and focus more on the console audience pissed many people, rightfully so.

For the record, the console version of DA:O was more successful than the PC version.

Don't blame dumbed down gameplay and poor design solely on consoles. Call of Duty is just as popular on the PC too.

Exactly. Just because it sold more on consoles doesn't mean that Bioware's first thought was to cater to a more action-orientated crowd; console players, including myself, loved Origins for what it was: a highly tactical and complex RPG with a staggering sense of scale. The only thing that can be subjected to fault for the game's popularity on consoles, is the removal of the free camera view for the PC versions. Everything else was simply down to EA getting greedy and wanting to make DA into an annual series.

Frankly, it pisses me off when people hurl the blame towards the console crowd. We all played the same game, y'know. It's not like the console ports of Origins only featured four differing environments with enemies who just teleport into place.

Man... I can't fathom why anyone would like Dragon Age 2. The writing is terrible; one of the characters at one point says, "I like big boats, I cannot lie." referring to the song. The characters are mostly terrible; Anders is especially aggregious given how the morph him from a unique character with a lot of depth into something which I actually think is offensive. And the environments and combat are painfully repetitious. Is it that people who liked it have low standards? Or did I miss something in my rage? (That is a genuine possibility.)

@Tahnit: Thanks. You single-handedly taught me to not look at the forums before listening to the podcast. Most people have been considerate, using titles like "I disagree with the most disappointing game."

Also, yeah. Dragon Age 2 - most disappointing game. I agree. I had expectations for Dragon Age 2 because of the first one. The first one was awesome, and the second one was a boring, generic RPG that I grew absolutely bored of 5 hours in. Brink may have well been crap, but I had no expectations for that game whatsoever.

Probably because Brink never looked that good so its hard to be disappointed. But following up a great throwback rpg like Dragon Age with somethng like DA2 is almost the perfect example of disappointing sequels.

@BrockNRolla said:

"I like big boats, I cannot lie."

How did I miss that? Okay, I rescind every positive thing I said about DA2. Ugggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh.

@BrockNRolla:

After reading a Let's Play! of DA2 at the Something Awful forums, I can say you were not angry enough.

@BrockNRolla: Egregious. Carry on.

@Abyssfull said:

@WinterSnowblind said:

@imsh_pl said:

Also, like everyone here has already said, no one had any expectations for Brink. DA:O on the other hand was widely liked, mainly by the 'hardcore' PC community, and the fact that they decided to abandon that formula and focus more on the console audience pissed many people, rightfully so.

For the record, the console version of DA:O was more successful than the PC version.

Don't blame dumbed down gameplay and poor design solely on consoles. Call of Duty is just as popular on the PC too.

Exactly. Just because it sold more on consoles doesn't mean that Bioware's first thought was to cater to a more action-orientated crowd; console players, including myself, loved Origins for what it was: a highly tactical and complex RPG with a staggering sense of scale. The only thing that can be subjected to fault for the game's popularity on consoles, is the removal of the free camera view for the PC versions. Everything else was simply down to EA getting greedy and wanting to make DA into an annual series.

Frankly, it pisses me off when people hurl the blame towards the console crowd. We all played the same game, y'know. It's not like the console ports of Origins only featured four differing environments with enemies who just teleport into place.

I'm sorry, I see that my explanation was kinda incorrect.

I wasn't trying to blame the consoles for the sequel being dumbed down.

As far as I'm concerned many PC gamers loved DA:O because of its return to a more 'classic' feel - pausable, more strategic gameplay, diverse paths and choices to be taken, numerous skills, etc. You know, the kinds of PC games that BioWare is famous for creating (like KotOR).

From what I remember from the interviews with the developers they decided to "streamline" the mechanics and focus more on action-based gameplay, thinking that it would appeal more to the console crowd which, as you pointed out, bought more copies of the game. However, they dumbed down the gameplay too much because of their misrepresentation of what the gaming crowd wanted.

But you're absolutely right, I should've written "and dumbing it down pissed many people, rightfully so." instead of "and focus more on the console audience pissed many people, rightfully so."

Brink was average but people expected more with Dragon Age 2. It had the potential to be a superb game but was not as good as original. For the record I loved Dragon Age 2 for the changes that they made. It was like they took Mass Effect and set it in the dragon age environment.

Sorry for spoiling it guys. I wasn't thinking when I posted. If I could edit the thread title I would :(

@Jimbo said:

@Prodstep said:

Also fuck Anders seriously, what a shit character holy hell.

Well said.

But, could also be said of nearly every DA2 character.

There were 5 people looking forward to Brink
There were 5 million people looking forward to DA2

Well, DA 2 was pretty damn disappointing, and nobody had high expectations for Brink to begin with.

Edit: @McGhee said:

Ugh. . . thanks for spoiling it as I haven't got a chance to listen to it yet today.

But how many of these "URR SERIUSLY WHY THEY NO LIKE/HATE THE GAEMS I LIKE/HATE? ??" threads do we really need?

Also, seconding this.

If I gave you a turd sandwitch and a roast dinner, and they both turned out to taste horrible, what meal would be more dissapointing?

DA2 was really one of the letdown games of the year...better get ready for ME 3 and DA3

What everyone else says. It seems perfectly normal that their expectations for a Dragon Age: Origins sequel were much higher than for Brink.

Dragon Age 2 felt like it was made in a week by a few, limited skilled, Dragon Age 1 fans

@clumsyninja1 said:

DA2 was really one of the letdown games of the year...better get ready for ME 3 and DA3

ME3 seems to be on the right track. DA3 will be more tricky.

@kingzetta said:

There were 5 people looking forward to Brink There were 5 million people looking forward to DA2

I'm just going to point out that there was a lot of hype for brink, im not sure why but there was.

It was a good a good game but disappointing.

This come from the guy with the NWN avatar so you know it's true.

@Branthog said:

@Jimbo said:

@Prodstep said:

Also fuck Anders seriously, what a shit character holy hell.

Well said.

But, could also be said of nearly every DA2 character.

I'm all for hatin' on everything to do with DA2, but the characters were still up to the same high BioWare standards. Sure, DA2 Anders sucked, but characters like Varric and Merril were brilliant, with likeable and highly characteristic personalities. Varric in particular is one of the best new characters of the year, I think; it's a shame the Bomb crew forgot about him under all the other rubbish that plagued DA2. Maybe they wouldn't of placed him in the top 3, but it sucks that they didn't at least acknowledge him.

@Branthog said:

@Jimbo said:

@Prodstep said:

Also fuck Anders seriously, what a shit character holy hell.

Well said.

But, could also be said of nearly every DA2 character.

I'm all for hatin' on everything to do with DA2, but the characters were still up to the same high BioWare standards. Sure, DA2 Anders sucked, but characters like Varric and Merril were brilliant, with likeable and highly characteristic personalities. Varric in particular is one of the best new characters of the year, I think; it's a shame the Bomb crew forgot about him under all the other rubbish that plagued DA2. Maybe they wouldn't of placed him in the top 3, but it sucks that they didn't at least acknowledge him.

@Tahnit said:

How the hell is dragon age 2 considered most disappointing game? Did the bombsquad guys forget a game called BRINK?! Seriously that game was completely broken from day 1. Dragonage 2 had its issues but on the whole it was an enjoyable bioware rpg. Brink on the other hand was a broken complete mess of a game. The single player AI was a joke, the multiplayer was unbalanced and not very much fun, and the game had numerous issues on the pc.

Seriously guys wtf?

You know, because we all cared so much about what the Enemy Territory guys were up to and didn't at all have higher expectations for the sequel to one of the best games ever made by one of the most consistently high quality developers.

Yeah, the characters were great, but I was REALLLLLY disappointed with the lack of dialogue options. I loved hanging around the campsite in DA:O and soaking in all the dialogue trees, and I was so sad to see that you had to be in a certain place just to engage in a minimal amount of dialogue with anyone...

Dragon Age 2 had terrible writing, a combat system that was a huge step down from DA:O, boring, LAZY environments that were literally copy pasted, choices that didn't matter, and a forgettable story. So yeah, most disappointing game in that it promised a lot of things and then failed to deliver every single one.

@kingzetta said:

There were 5 people looking forward to Brink There were 5 million people looking forward to DA2

I think this said it best. Complaining on what Giantbomb thought the biggest disappointment game is a bit silly. They didn't sit in the room and say "Well there is this one duder out there who thought Brink was more of a disappointment so lets add this to the list."

I think you should create your own blog list of what games you would put in each category then marvel as other people make a post saying "What the hell is this guy thinking putting BRINK as the most disappointing game". This is one of those things where it's probably best to keep your opinion to yourself or at least come up with a more intelligent way to say "Hey I think it should be this". cause I think this is a foolish thread.

@Abyssfull said:

@Branthog said:

@Jimbo said:

@Prodstep said:

Also fuck Anders seriously, what a shit character holy hell.

Well said.

But, could also be said of nearly every DA2 character.

I'm all for hatin' on everything to do with DA2, but the characters were still up to the same high BioWare standards. Sure, DA2 Anders sucked, but characters like Varric and Merril were brilliant, with likeable and highly characteristic personalities. Varric in particular is one of the best new characters of the year, I think; it's a shame the Bomb crew forgot about him under all the other rubbish that plagued DA2. Maybe they wouldn't of placed him in the top 3, but it sucks that they didn't at least acknowledge him.

What the heck? The characters were all damn awful and unlikeable. Just to point out a few of the most obvious ones:

1. We have Anders, an character who stands out most for constantly whining about all kind of stuff. Aside from being ungrateful, unreliable and way over the top he's also plain annoying. I could go to incredible lenghts to point out all the things I didn't like about him, but that would take to much space.

2. Then there's Merril. Who's supposed to be the "nice virgin girl from next door" and who's also a friggind bloodmage. She goes from "oh how cute kittens" to omnicidal maniac trying to bring elder gods into the Dragon Age 2 world. She doesn't listen to anyone, she doesn't really care for anyone besides herself and only after everything went horrible wrong and other people had to pay the price for her he even considers that she might be wrong.

3. Which brings me to Fenris, who's supposed to be "dark and troubled" with such a sad past. In truth everything about him screamed "HIPSTER EMO" and I wanted to strangle him after a few minutes. His constant whining and bitching doesn't really help...

4. Then there's Isabella, who seems to be on a quest to catch ever STD there is and who outright cheats on you right in front of you implying that she does it all the time even after a certain point when we finally found out "what a horrible past she had and that she only behaves like that because of her terrible past and actually she doesn't want to act like that at all" and so on...

5. Then we have Aveline and Varrick. Ok there isn't so much one could hold against them, but neither are they really outstanding. They look way better since you only have the previous four to compare them to...

@Branthog said:

@Abyssfull said:

@Branthog said:

@Jimbo said:

@Prodstep said:

Also fuck Anders seriously, what a shit character holy hell.

Well said.

But, could also be said of nearly every DA2 character.

I'm all for hatin' on everything to do with DA2, but the characters were still up to the same high BioWare standards. Sure, DA2 Anders sucked, but characters like Varric and Merril were brilliant, with likeable and highly characteristic personalities. Varric in particular is one of the best new characters of the year, I think; it's a shame the Bomb crew forgot about him under all the other rubbish that plagued DA2. Maybe they wouldn't of placed him in the top 3, but it sucks that they didn't at least acknowledge him.

Frankly, every single Dragon Age 2 character was essentially a flat cookie-cutter character; only interesting in the way that people say videogame stories are interesting - in a world in which only videogame stories exist (because compared to stories in every other medium, game stories continue to fall flat). Varric was cool, but not particularly deep or interesting, as far as I'm concerned. And Merril was a pretty typical character (though probably my favorite from the game . . . possibly in big part due to the voice actress and the accent). Then, you had Claudia Black playing Claudia Black in yet another game, here.

Saying they were all shit is probably going too far, on my part, but I can't honestly claim that any of the characters were particularly fantastic.

I liked Isabela quite a bit. She had two layers to her personality, which is one more than most video game characters. I thought it was neat to have a fairly typical OTT slutty video game female and then gradually expose how that persona was borne out of her insecurity (as is often the case in real life).

@EightBitShik said:

@kingzetta said:

There were 5 people looking forward to Brink There were 5 million people looking forward to DA2

I think this said it best. Complaining on what Giantbomb thought the biggest disappointment game is a bit silly. They didn't sit in the room and say "Well there is this one duder out there who thought Brink was more of a disappointment so lets add this to the list."

I think you should create your own blog list of what games you would put in each category then marvel as other people make a post saying "What the hell is this guy thinking putting BRINK as the most disappointing game". This is one of those things where it's probably best to keep your opinion to yourself or at least come up with a more intelligent way to say "Hey I think it should be this". cause I think this is a foolish thread.

+1'ed. Just on expectations alone, Dragon Age 2 had something to live up to. By comparison, with nothing before it Brink was a mystery to everyone going into launch. I feel this reasoning should dismiss the OP's argument.

@Branthog said:

Dragon Age 2 was fucking awful, but it wasn't even in the same league as shitty Bring or shitty Homefront.

Completely, utterly irrelevant.

Cry baby, CRY!!

@Branthog said:

@Abyssfull said:

@Branthog said:

@Jimbo said:

@Prodstep said:

Also fuck Anders seriously, what a shit character holy hell.

Well said.

But, could also be said of nearly every DA2 character.

I'm all for hatin' on everything to do with DA2, but the characters were still up to the same high BioWare standards. Sure, DA2 Anders sucked, but characters like Varric and Merril were brilliant, with likeable and highly characteristic personalities. Varric in particular is one of the best new characters of the year, I think; it's a shame the Bomb crew forgot about him under all the other rubbish that plagued DA2. Maybe they wouldn't of placed him in the top 3, but it sucks that they didn't at least acknowledge him.

Frankly, every single Dragon Age 2 character was essentially a flat cookie-cutter character; only interesting in the way that people say videogame stories are interesting - in a world in which only videogame stories exist (because compared to stories in every other medium, game stories continue to fall flat). Varric was cool, but not particularly deep or interesting, as far as I'm concerned. And Merril was a pretty typical character (though probably my favorite from the game . . . possibly in big part due to the voice actress and the accent). Then, you had Claudia Black playing Claudia Black in yet another game, here.

Saying they were all shit is probably going too far, on my part, but I can't honestly claim that any of the characters were particularly fantastic.

I liked Isabela quite a bit. She had two layers to her personality, which is one more than most video game characters. I thought it was neat to have a fairly typical OTT slutty video game female and then gradually expose how that persona was borne out of her insecurity (as is often the case in real life).

I love that Brad is saying "the end of BioWare!" about a game that got pretty good reviews. It's a 4/5. Especially when it comes from Brad who has played maybe 3 BioWare games in his life. If that.

@Branthog said:

Dragon Age 2 was fucking awful, but it wasn't even in the same league as shitty Brink or shitty Homefront.

Completely, utterly irrelevant.

I love that Brad is saying "the end of BioWare!" about a game that got pretty good reviews. It's a 4/5. Especially when it comes from Brad who has played maybe 3 BioWare games in his life. If that.

I also remember Brink as an anticipated game. Dragon Age 2 sounds like the winner for dissapoint, just the same.

@Brodehouse said:

I love that Brad is saying "the end of BioWare!" about a game that got pretty good reviews. It's a 4/5. Especially when it comes from Brad who has played maybe 3 BioWare games in his life. If that.

Only shows that one can't take reviews serious at all. The game was one of the worst I played this year and I played a lot of games. I really liked how Bioware themselve were speaking about a "polarized" fanbase when that is in fact not true. There are a few very vocal people like you who defend the game. Most however agreed that it was absolutely awful.

It was a rushed game, trying to appeal to a broader spectrum of players thus making more cash, using the same two dungeons over and over again with unlikeable companions and a story that felt like one long kick into the groin.

@Branthog:

The topic is which is the biggest disappointment. That means that it measures the biggest gap between expectation and result, not relative quality considering the rest of the market. Brink and Homefront didn't deliver and were terrible games, but the gap between what was expected of them and how good they are is much less than the same gap for DA2.

The only thing I can say in Dragon Age 2's defense is that it isn't quite unplayable. The story is good. The characters are fantastic. I agree that the gap between the first and the second games is probably what makes this. But then, from the moment I saw that leak of the first bit of gameplay, my expectations were set laughably low.

Remember the putties.

I am sick of all these "This got this award OMG WTF" threads

So... I just bought Dragon Age 2 for $26.99, but haven't tried it yet. I've no doubt some people are exaggerating how bad it is, but is it worth what I payed for it?

Origins was a fantastic game, amazing even.

DA2 was a steaming pile of shit. I'd say that's pretty disappointing.

@Tahnit: I agree. DA2 still had an amazing story. I know it was rushed out, but the combat was actually really improved in my opinion and I really cared about the characters by the end.

@AlecOfTheWest: Yeah, definitely. However, there are a few issues that the game does have that we can all agree on:

(Top Three Issues off the top of my head)

1. The art asset reuse: People weren't kidding when they said that every single dungeon looks the same. The same layouts were used all over DA2, with the only difference being that some of the areas were blocked off by locked doors or stone slabs. Honestly, this was the biggest issue I had with the game - as it made playing the game a chore as you visit the same areas over and over again through the course of the game - nothing new was added
2. Waves of enemies that would spawn behind you in the middle of the fight, making it extremely frustrating to position your party in such a way where the casters are protected. I can't tell the amount of times I thought a fight was going well, when suddenly a new wave of enemies would spawn and would wreck Anders or Merril. I ended up turning the difficulty down towards the end of the game because I was tired of dealing with it.
3. The lack of choice you have over the ending. I won't spoil anything, but it's safe to say that what happens in the games' ending is inevitable, and it's frustrating to have so little control over it when the game acts as if you do.

However, there are lots of things that make this game at least worth a playthough. The characters are well written for the most part and some of the character quests (Aveline) are the best that Bioware has ever done. The change of story focus from a hero to saving the world to a more personal story is refreshing, and I wished more games (albeit with more polish) followed this route. The idea of a changing city is a neat idea, and while not as much changes as you would expect over the course of ten years, the side quests come up again and again and do change and develop as time passes, so those are definitely worth doing.

To be fair not only was Brink bad, it was forgettable. I completely forgot about it until you mentioned it.  
That game was pretty disappointing.  
Dragon Age 2 is pretty bad though. Their reasoning was something I agree with completely, too. It's not normal for BioWare to create an inferior product and that's what happened with DA2. That's pretty disappointing and on a whole I think it's more disappointing then brink because it was already established and then DA2 came out and it was not nearly as good as it should have been.